Jeb Bush and Foreign Policy

Scott McConnell wonders what kind of foreign policy Jeb Bush will end up endorsing. Specifically, he is interested to find out which member of his family he will be most like on issues relating to Israel:

A President Jeb Bush would face a different set of questions about “the special relationship”. Would he respond like his father or like his brother?

Based on what we know of his views, I don’t think it’s a stretch to conclude that he frequently holds views very similar to those of his brother and his brother’s most vocal supporters. That goes for policies relating to Israel and for foreign policy more generally. To some extent, that is a reflection of the difference between his generation and that of his father. It is also a reflection of the changes that have taken place in the GOP in the twenty-two years since the elder Bush lost his re-election bid. The party has become much more uniformly “pro-Israel” than it was when Bush’s father was in office, and reflexive support for Israel has become an even more important litmus test for aspiring Republican candidates than it used to be. Jeb Bush has been nothing if not a conventional Republican on foreign policy insofar as he has had anything to say about it, so there is no reason to think that he would differ greatly from his brother on this.

There has been some speculation that he is closer to his father on foreign policy, but as far as I can tell there is not much evidence to back this up. It seems to me that the “Jeb Bush is secretly a realist” speculation is based on the perception of Bush as the smarter, more competent brother, and therefore as someone who wouldn’t be so easily won over by crackpot hard-line views, but I’m afraid that this is probably just wishful thinking. Deriding “neo-isolationism” is de rigueur for any hawkish Republican, so that doesn’t tell us very much by itself, but I submit that someone who speaks at Sheldon Adelson gatherings and wins plaudits from George W. Bush’s former press secretary is not going to identify himself with the Republican realist tradition, either. I wouldn’t assume that Bush and Rubio hold identical views on these issues, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he frequently agrees with the arguments that his protege has been making in the last four years. The country was already badly misled once by crediting a younger Bush with following in the foreign policy tradition of his father. If Jeb Bush does run for president and tries the same trick of seeming to endorse realist views, we should know better than to believe him.

MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR

Hide 5 comments

5 Responses to Jeb Bush and Foreign Policy

is not going to identify himself with the Republican realist tradition, either.

A huge question here is–in what shape did this Republican realist tradition preserve itself? I could be wrong, of course, and I want to be, actually, wrong, but my subjective feel is that today it is nothing more than a fringe current which is being driven more and more out of GOP.

The answer is obvious. He’s already tainted in many conservative eyes due to his immigration policy. If he bucks the widespread consensus on Israel, people like Sheldon Adelson will take great enjoyment in crushing his chances. And there’s no big Israel-skeptic community out there he might win over with a bold stance.

No, if he really decides to go after the Presidency, he’s going to toe the line on every conservative issue he can.

What I find profoundly disappointing about this article is that it makes no mention of the CFR (Committee on Foreign Relations, a.k.a., David Rockefeller’s ANTI-US-Sovereignty Club). We the people have a RIGHT to KNOW, in EVERY case, what organizations the candidates are (or even HAVE BEEN)members of. If indeed Jeb Bush is a CFR member, I will vote AGAINST him; however, that’s really academic, because I am categorically ANTI-DYNASTY. We’ve had TWO CFR Bushes already; that’s TWO TOO MANY. I am a Republican, but the Republican Party really pisses me off when they insist on running these GLOBALISTS for office!

Jeb Bush, if elected, would be part of a DYNASTY. For that reason alone, I cannot vote for him; furthermore, if the RNC should choose to ram a dynasty candidate down our throats by refusing to run a non-dynasty candidate instead, they would be revealing themselves as far more evil than previously imagined. In addition, I ask the question: IS Jeb Bush a present or past member of the CFR? If so, I cannot vote for him. It is ABSOLUTELY CENTRAL to the PRIMARY MECHANISM of our national decline that most of the Presidential candidates we get from BOTH major political parties have ties to the CFR, which is one of daviD rockefelleR’s ANTI-US-SOVEREIGNTY CLUBS. Another one of them is the Trilateral Commission.

As a follow-up to my comments posted yesterday, I Googled up the question, “Is Jeb Bush CFR?” The first search result that came up was the CFR’s OWN WEBSITE. The article clearly shows Jeb Bush as a MEMBER. What does it TAKE to wake up America?????
The CFR is one of the most pernicious, if not THE MOST pernicious, of all the organizations that are working for the cause of ONE-WORLD GOVERNMENT, AGAINST AMERICAN SOVEREIGNTY. We the VOTERS need to take this knowledge to heart and refuse to vote for ANY CFR candidates FROM ANY POLITICAL PARTY. The CFR has MASSIVELY infiltrated BOTH of our major political parties, and has likewise infiltrated the MEDIA. We are TOAST if we don’t PURGE them out of our government AND our media.